It Might Get Loud (2008)

Directed by: Davis Guggenheim | 95 minutes | documentary, music | Starring: The Edge, Jack White, Jimmy Page, Bono, Michael McKean, Larry Mullen Jr., Robert Plan, Meg White

It’s not often that you have three generations of guitar heroes in one room. Three musicians, born in 1975, 1961 and 1944. Jack White of The White Stripes, The Edge of U2 and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. Fortunately, these guitar heroes also realize that this is special. We see them driving to the location in anticipation of the meeting and the camera registers the high expectations. For example, Jack White, who has already shown how to build a guitar yourself from waste materials, brags that he is going to try to get his colleagues their tricks, but the other two also indicate that they are looking forward to the meeting.

The purpose of the documentary is that the three guitarists discuss their beloved instrument together, and of course take it up to jam a nice game on it. It’s a shame that the amount of scenes in which they can actually be seen together is ultimately a bit disappointing. ‘It Might Get Loud’ shows the individual musicians much more in their own environment, in which it is very clear what their background is, how the love for the guitar originated and especially what they can do with it. Fortunately, that alone makes ‘It Might Get Loud’ (a quote from The Edge) absolutely worth it. However, the scenes in which the three together show and especially hear what they excel at are the ones you look forward to the most; luckily they don’t disappoint. You can’t help but watch the scene in which Jimmy Page plays Whole Lotta Love for his colleagues with a big grin on your face.

The nice thing about Davis Guggenheim’s approach is that he doesn’t put the musicians on a pedestal. In fact, it’s still those high school boys who cherish their guitar and the music as the most precious thing in their lives and can’t believe they’ve got the whole world at their feet with that instrument. They can enjoy beautiful riffs just as intensely as the music lover does at home. What Guggenheim also demonstrates with this documentary is that anything is possible: these three guitarists each come from a difficult, sometimes even depressing situation and still managed to get the best out of themselves and play some of the world’s most influential and beautiful pieces of music. to create. Finally, the climax, the performance of the Led Zeppelin song In My Time of Dying by the three rock gods, is pure magic.

‘It Might Get Loud’ is a finger-licking documentary for guitar lovers, but anyone with an above-average interest in music should watch this film.